(Press-News.org) Adhesive tape fulfills many purposes, from quickly fixing household appliances to ensuring a reliable seal on a mailed package. When using tape with a strong bond, removing it may only be possible by scraping and prying at the tape's corners, hoping desperately that surface pieces don’t tear away with the tape.
But what if you could make adhesives both strong and easily removable? This seemingly paradoxical combination of properties could dramatically change applications in robotic grasping, wearables for health monitoring, and manufacturing for assembly and recycling.
Developing such adhesives may not by that far off through the latest research conducted by the team of Michael Bartlett, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech, and published in Nature Materials on June 22.
The physics of stickiness
Adhesive tapes were first developed in the 1920s to meet a need for automobile painters who wanted better options for painting two colors on car bodies. Since the first masking tape was put into use, many other variations have been created. Factories have rolled out invisible tape for wrapping presents, electrical tape for covering wires, and duct tape for more uses than it was ever intended to fill.
Normally, when tapes are peeled off, they separate in a straight line along the length of the strip until the tape is completely removed. Strong adhesives are made more difficult to peel, while reusable adhesives promote the strength-limiting separation.
Bartlett’s team theorized that if the separation path were controlled, then perhaps adhesives could be made both strong and removable. They tapped into the methods of a 2,000-year-old Japanese art form to determine how to do it.
END
Stronger tape engineered through the art of cutting
Michael Bartlett’s team at Virginia Tech has adapted kirigami, the ancient Japanese art of cutting paper, into a method for increasing the adhesive bond of ordinary tape by 60 times
2023-06-22
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Plant-based food packages linked to reduced BMI in children
2023-06-22
A new study led by researchers from the Mass General Brigham healthcare system suggests that taking a “food is medicine” approach could increase nutrition security for families and lead to reductions in body mass index (BMI) in children. Working together with the MGH Food Pantry, researchers from the Massachusetts General for Children and Boston Children’s Hospital examined whether providing weekly plant-based foods to families seeking food assistance during the pandemic led to weight changes among children.
The team found an association between increasing receipt of food packages and decreased BMI. The findings, published ...
Rethink funding by putting the lottery first
2023-06-22
The allocation process of funding to researchers is far from optimal. A recent project of the Open Science Initiative at the University of Lübeck (Germany) has put forward a new proposal to challenge and rethink the funding system. This proposal by researchers from Lübeck University, Humboldt University Berlin, the Academy of Fine Arts Munich, and the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods in Bonn involves an initial lottery determining which researchers can submit funding applications in a ...
Flooding tackled by helping citizens take action – study
2023-06-22
Extreme weather caused by climate change - such as flooding - will be to easier to prepare for after scientists developed a new method that empowers citizens to identify solutions to the threats their communities face.
The approach works by researchers bringing community groups together to discuss and understand the likely impacts of climate change in a local area. In the UK, these include indirect risks such as food shortages and energy disruption as well as physical threats like heat stress and flooding.
Most climate adaptation initiatives are developed by governments or by businesses, rather than to help citizens help themselves. The new approach, published ...
Trends in maternal mortality, severe maternal morbidity during delivery-related hospitalizations
2023-06-22
About The Study: This study found that delivery-related mortality in U.S. hospitals decreased for all racial and ethnic groups, age groups, and modes of delivery during 2008 to 2021, likely demonstrating the impact of national strategies focused on improving maternal quality of care provided during delivery-related hospitalizations. Severe maternal morbidity prevalence increased for all patients, with higher rates for racial and ethnic minority patients of any age. Advanced maternal age, racial or ethnic minority group status, cesarean delivery, and comorbidities were associated with higher odds of mortality and severe maternal ...
Unraveling the connections between the brain and gut
2023-06-22
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- The brain and the digestive tract are in constant communication, relaying signals that help to control feeding and other behaviors. This extensive communication network also influences our mental state and has been implicated in many neurological disorders.
MIT engineers have now designed a new technology that can be used to probe those connections. Using fibers embedded with a variety of sensors, as well as light sources for optogenetic stimulation, the researchers have shown that they can control neural circuits connecting the gut and the brain, in mice.
In a new study, the researchers demonstrated that they could induce feelings of fullness or reward-seeking ...
Parental cancer history and children’s unmet food, housing, and transportation economic needs
2023-06-22
About The Study: Parental cancer is associated with greater likelihood of food insecurity, unaffordability of housing and other necessities, and transportation barriers to medical care for minor children. Strategies to identify such children and address their needs are warranted.
Authors: Zhiyuan Zheng, Ph.D., of the American Cancer Society in Atlanta, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.19359)
Editor’s Note: Please ...
Risk of cardiovascular events among patients with head and neck cancer
2023-06-22
About The Study: The results of this study suggest that in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), the burden of suboptimally controlled cardiovascular (CV) risk factors and incident risk of stroke and heart attack are substantial. Modifiable CV risk factors are associated with risk of adverse CV events, and these events are associated with a higher risk of death. These findings identify populations at risk and potentially underscore the importance of modifiable CV risk factor control and motivate strategies to reduce CV risk in HNSCC survivorship care.
Authors: Lova Sun, M.D., ...
Physicists discover a new switch for superconductivity
2023-06-22
Under certain conditions — usually exceedingly cold ones — some materials shift their structure to unlock new, superconducting behavior. This structural shift is known as a “nematic transition,” and physicists suspect that it offers a new way to drive materials into a superconducting state where electrons can flow entirely friction-free.
But what exactly drives this transition in the first place? The answer could help scientists improve existing superconductors and discover new ones.
Now, MIT physicists have identified the key to how one class of superconductors undergoes a nematic transition, and it’s in surprising contrast to what ...
Studying herpes encephalitis with mini-brains
2023-06-22
The herpes simplex virus-1 can sometimes cause a dangerous brain infection. Combining an anti-inflammatory and an antiviral could help in these cases, report scientists with the Rajewsky and Landthaler labs and the Organoid Platform at the Max Delbrück Center in Nature Microbiology.
About 3.7 billion people — 67% of us — carry the herpes simplex virus-1 in our nerves cells where it lies quiescent until triggered by stress or injury. When activated, its symptoms are usually mild, limited to cold sores or ulcers in our mouth.
Very rarely, the virus ...
New study shows children of parents with cancer history in US may be vulnerable to housing, food and financial hardship
2023-06-22
ATLANTA, June 22, 2023 – A new study by researchers at the American Cancer Society (ACS) found children of parents with a cancer history in the United States are more at risk of having unmet needs for housing, food, and other living necessities than their counterparts without a parental cancer history. The findings will be published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network Open.
“Cancer is a life-threatening disease and parents with a history of cancer are often saddled with worry about paying for food, the ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
HKU Engineering Professor Kaibin Huang named Fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors
HKU Faculty of Arts Professor Charles Schencking elected as Corresponding Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities
Rise in post-birth blood pressure in Asian, Black, and Hispanic women linked to microaggressions
Weight changes and heart failure risk after breast cancer development
Changes in patient care experience after private equity acquisition of US hospitals
COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among Black women in the US
An earful of gill: USC Stem Cell study points to the evolutionary origin of the mammalian outer ear
A Sustainable Development Goal for space?
The Balbiani body: Cracking the secret of embryonic beginnings
Science behind genetic testing for identifying risk of opioid misuse remains unproven
Two-in-one root armor protects plants from environmental stressors and fights climate change
The extreme teeth of sabre-toothed predators were ‘optimal’ for biting into prey, new study reveals
Research spotlight: Factors contributing to treatment resistance in CAR T therapies for solid tumors
New findings could lead to better treatment for blood cancer
Expanded research on COPD and metabolic syndrome would advance patient-centered care
Mount Sinai-led team enhances automated method to detect common sleep disorder affecting millions
Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Dr. Helen Fisher, and Dr. Judith Allen donate historic archives to the Kinsey Institute
Bridging oceans: A US-Japan approach to flood risk and climate resilience
Dense human population is linked to longer urban coyote survival
Science educator calls for climate change to be taught more in US schools
Realistic emission tests for motorbikes, mopeds and quads
Race- and gender-based microaggressions linked to higher post-birth blood pressure
Novel ‘quantum refrigerator’ is great at erasing quantum computer’s chalkboard
States struggle to curb food waste despite policies
Record cold quantum refrigerator paves way for reliable quantum computers
New discovery makes organic solar cells more efficient and stable
What we eat affects our health — and can alter how our genes function
Lung cancer test predicts survival in early stages better than current methods
Pioneering new mathematical model could help protect privacy and ensure safer use of AI
Floods, droughts, then fires: Hydroclimate whiplash is speeding up globally
[Press-News.org] Stronger tape engineered through the art of cuttingMichael Bartlett’s team at Virginia Tech has adapted kirigami, the ancient Japanese art of cutting paper, into a method for increasing the adhesive bond of ordinary tape by 60 times